Flexible Mechanisms for Remote Attestation
Abstract
Remote attestation consists of generating evidence of a system’s integrity via measurements and reporting the evidence to a remote party for appraisal in a form that can be trusted. The parties that exchange information must agree on formats and protocols. We assert there is a large variety of patterns of interactions among appraisers and attesters of interest. Therefore, it is important to standardize on flexible mechanisms for remote attestation. We make our case by describing scenarios that require the exchange of evidence among multiple parties using a variety of message passing patterns. We show cases in which changes in the order of evidence collection result in important differences to what can be inferred by an appraiser. We argue that adding the ability to negotiate the appropriate kind of attestation allows for remote attestations that better adapt to a dynamically changing environment. Finally, we suggest a language-based solution to taming the complexity of specifying and negotiating attestation procedures.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Pub Defense Publication
- Publication Date
- Sep 30, 2021
- Source ID
- 10.1145/3470535
Entities
People
- Ian D. Kretz
- John D. Ramsdell
- Paul D. Rowe
- Perry Alexander
- Peter A. Loscocco
- Sarah C. Helble
Organizations
- Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Johns Hopkins University
- MITRE Corporation
- National Security Agency
- University of Kansas